The writers join a list of notable previous winners that includes Jason Robert Brown (“Parade”); Jeff Marx and Robert Lopez (“Avenue Q”); and Robert L. Freedman and Steven Lutvak (“A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder”).

Ms. Luftig, 54, won the prize for the most promising musical theater lyricist. Her musical, “My Heart Is the Drum” — about a young woman from Ghana who runs away from her village to study at a university in Accra — will be staged at the Village Theater in Washington this year. (Her collaborators on the project are Phillip Palmer and Jennie Redling.) She is also writing the lyrics for a musical in English and Spanish, based on the book “The Tooth Fairy Meets El Ratón Pérez” by René Colato Laínez.

Mr. Goldstein, 40, won the prize for the most promising musical theater librettist. His “Unknown Soldier,” written with Michael Friedman, had a sold-out run last year at the Williamstown Theater Festival and earned a positive review in The New York Times.

He is best known as the director of the 2011 Broadway revival of “Godspell.”

“It’s the one prize that book writers point to that they really want to achieve,” said Mr. Goldstein, who plans to use the Kleban prize money to pay off preschool payments (he has a 4-year-old daughter). “It’s an incredible honor.”

Ms. Luftig, who works as a freelance editor, said the money will give her more time to write. “It feels a little like winning the Powerball, with slightly better odds,” she added.

The prize is underwritten by the Kleban Foundation, established in 1988 in the will of Edward L. Kleban (the lyricist of “A Chorus Line”). It will be presented on Feb. 8 at the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.